John Carney‘s Once was a perfect creation — an Irish busker musical about falling in love while building a band, and which ended with the main character heading off to London in search of the big time. I bought every line, every frame, every song…it felt honest and true and straight from the heart. Carney’s next was Begin Again (originally titled Can A Song Save Your Life?), a kind of fantasy redemption tale about a New York manager (Mark Ruffalo) falling platonically in love with a fledgling singer (Keira Knightley) as they assemble a ragtag street band. I enjoyed the spirit and pluck, but the film still felt a wee bit labored and contrived.

Carney’s Sing Street (Weinstein, 4.15) is better than Begin Again but not as good as Once, although it nearly gets there at times. It’s a Dublin-set, mid-’80s love story that follows what now feels like the Carney formula — falling in love, building a band, leaving for London at the finale. It’s well crafted and authentic as far as it goes, but it’s still another Carney-musical-with-guitars in which everyone who steps up to a mike plays perfectly and even the rehearsal versions of songs are perfectly mixed.

This isn’t a bad thing, per se, but at the same time you can’t quite believe it. Well, you can if you want to (two or three critics at yesterday afternoon’s screening were chortling all through it) but not 100%.

I had a perfectly fine time with Sing Street, but you can sense Carney trying like hell to please whereas Once, which was selling a similar combination of charm, heart and great tunes, seemed to primarily be about its own sincerity and passion; it almost felt as if reaching the audience was an afterthought on Carney’s part. It wasn’t, of course, but Carney half-convinced me otherwise.

It must also be said that Sing Street isn’t nearly as raunchy and kicky as Alan Parker‘s The Commitments (’91), which was about the travails of an Irish blues-and-soul band. The Commitments was naturally aiming to entertain, but, like Once, it seemed to first and foremost be about planting its feet and giving straight from the gut. You couldn’t sense the tugging of marionette strings as clearly in The Commitments as you can in Sing Street.

Nobody “looks.” The art of quiet meditative reflection is pretty much out the window. Nobody downshifts and takes it all in. Everything is for capturing, re-framing, posting on Facebook or Tumbr. I say this as a guilty party. The below title/quote is from a New Yorker piece that went up today.

This morning I had a pleasant conversation with Dave Strohmaier, who’ll be directing the Smell-o-Vision presentation of Michael Todd, Jr. and Jack Cardiff‘s Scent of Mystery (a.k.a. Holiday in Spain) at the Cinerama Dome on Sunday, May 2nd, under the aegis of the TCM Classic Film Festival.

I explained that I can’t attend the public showing (I’m flying back to NYC on 4.29) and asked if there might be a technical rehearsal screening of some kind before May 2nd. Strohmaier, the guy who restored and re-mastered Scent, invited me to observe a smell test showing at the Dome on 4.20…great.

The 12.2 screening will involve and in fact require audience participation. Earlier this year In70mm.com‘s Tammy Burnstock wrote a piece about the process, which was tested successfuly at special-event screenings of Scent of Mystery last October. The first happened during the Widescreen Weekend Festival (10.15 thru 10.18) in Bradford, England, and the second was staged at Copehhagen’s Cinematek on 10.22.

A never-before-seen extended cut of Amy Berg‘s Janis: Little Girl Blue, which I fell for in Toronto six and a half months ago and which really needs to be seen by anyone who ever felt the Joplin transportation, will debut as a PBS American Masters special on the evening of Tuesday, 5.3.16, or about a month hence. Below is an outtake interview with Dick Cavett. He had Joplin on his ABC late-night talk show two or three times, got to know and like her pretty well, got high with her, shared an intimate moment, etc.

From 9.17.15 HE review:

A 73% RT rating for Dan Kwan and Daniel Schienart‘s Swiss Army Man indicates a certain intrigue…maybe. And yet Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeh filed the following on 1.22.16: “[This] bizarre fable about a lost man (Paul Dano) who befriends a farting corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) could win the festival’s award for the most walk-outs, as a continuous stream of audience members kept standing up and bolting for the door throughout the film.” Chilling speculation from Variety‘s Peter Debruge: “Cannes tends to be ultra-picky about programming films that previously played Sundance, although there is speculation that Swiss Army Man…could be picked.”

Sunday email from colleague: “Take this from me…you HAVE to see The Invitation. Email Ryan Fons for a link. It’s incredible. Trust me.” Variety‘s Justin Chang: “Set during a mysterious reunion among old friends where something is quite palpably not right, this well-acted, beautifully modulated exercise represents director Karyn Kusama’s strongest work in years, revealing an assurance of tone, craft and purpose that haven’t been in evidence since her Sundance prize-winning debut, Girlfight.”

I’m aware of the 90% Rotten Tomatoes rating, of course, but honestly? I was dissuaded by that teaser/trailer. It’s too vague. Letting that go. Catching a screener later today.

Jonas Never‘s “Touch of Venice” wall mural (102 x 50 feet) was painted between November 2011 and April 2012. It’s a tribute, of course, to Orson Welles‘ Touch of Evil, which was filmed in the Venice area in 1957, or nearly 60 years ago. I did a three-hour stroll in the region on Sunday night.

I love that there’s an outfit called Carl Denham Productions paying rent in the small complex of offices on 73 Market Street.

I’ve seen two of the 12 films opening on Friday, 4.8 — Demolition (Fox Searchlight) and Louder Than Bombs (The Orchard). I’ll be attending screenings of The Boss (Universal) on Tuesday and Hardcore Henry (STX Entertainment) on Wednesday. And I don’t have a great amount of interest in five others — Before I Wake (Relativity), The Dying of the Light (First Run), The Invitation (Drafthouse), Mr. Right (Focus Worlds) and One More Time (Starz Media).

Opening the following Friday (4.15) will be Barbershop: The Next Cut (no, thanks!), Criminal (no invites yet and it opens in 12 days), The Jungle Book, John Carney‘s Sing Street, Above and Below, Colonia, Fan, Green Room, Our Last Tango, Rio, I Love You.

I saw Milos Forman‘s Oscar-winning One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest at least a couple of times when it opened in November ’75. I knew the play pretty well as I’d played Dr. Spivey in a Stamford Community Theatre production a couple of months earlier. I’d always admired Ken Kesey‘s play and particularly the metaphor of rebellion behind it, but I couldn’t quite love the film. Liked it, admired the construction and the ensemble performances, didn’t love it.

Maybe I just wasn’t all that aroused by Jack Nicholson‘s Randall P. McMurphy. I know what the consensus view is, but to me Jack seemed to be mainly playing himself while flirting with McMurphy. I would’ve loved to have seen Kirk Douglas’s 1963 Broadway stage version.

I can tell you that after those two viewings of Forman’s film I never saw it again…not once. And yet I’ve seen Nicholson’s other seminal ’70s films over and over — Chinatown, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Carnal Knowledge, The Passenger, The King of Marvin Gardens, etc. So why have I avoided Cuckoo’s Nest all these decades? Mainly, I think, because it’s essentially about terms of confinement.

McMurphy triggers a rebellion but he’s a sloppy Spartacus, and he winds up lobotomized and dead. And for what? The right to sneak prostitutes into the ward and get everyone drunk? Is McMurphy a champion of free will or isn’t he? He blows at least a couple of chances to escape Nurse Ratched’s control during the second half but he just hangs around.

I’ve just never felt much rapport with films that focus on prisoners and life sentences. That includes The Shawshank Redemption. One exception: Robert M. Young‘s Short Eyes.

As John Boorman‘s Point Blank opened on 8.30.67, I’m guessing it shot sometime in the early to mid fall of ’66. The wrap party, I’m guessing, was probably held in November or December of ’66. It happened at a place called “The Zoo” which was also known as Osko’s (333 So. La Cienega, corner of La Cienega and San Vicente, south of Third Street) around the same time. I’d like to time-machine back so I can attend. How many times in the life of the planet did Lee Marvin, Boorman (33 at the time, looked 27), Warren Oates (38 at the time, looked 30), Steve McQueen (36), Burt Reynolds (30), Keenan Wynn and probably Angie Dickinson joke around, get silly and dance the shing-a-ling at the same gathering?

(l. to r.) Lee Marvin, John Boorman, Michelle Triola.

(l. to r.) Steve McQueen, Neile McQueen, Burt Reynolds.

Warren Oates, Marvin.

This morning Jason Henschel (‏@Henschie42) asked Big Red One costar Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) to describe Lee Marvin, who starred in the same 1980 Sam Fuller war film, in seven syllables. Hamill said nothing to I stepped into the breach: Flinty deep-voiced irony. Can anyone top this?